MASH (film)
MASH (stylized as M*A*S*H on the film's poster art) is a 1970 American satirical black comedy film directed by Robert Altman and written by Ring Lardner, Jr., based on Richard Hooker's novel MASH: A Novel About Three Army Doctors. It is the only feature film in the M*A*S*H franchise and became one of the biggest films of the early 1970s for 20th Century Fox. The film depicts a unit of medical personnel stationed at a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital (MASH) during the Korean War; the subtext is about the Vietnam War.[4] It stars Donald Sutherland, Tom Skerritt and Elliott Gould, with Sally Kellerman,Robert Duvall, René Auberjonois, Gary Burghoff, Roger Bowen, Michael Murphy and, in his film debut, professional football player Fred Williamson. The film inspired the popular and critically acclaimed television series M*A*S*H, which ran from 1972 to 1983. The film went on to receive five Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture. The film's only Academy Award that won was for Best Adapted Screenplay. Perhaps the not so subtle antiwar message of the film came in part from the screenwriter, Ring Lardner Jr. who was one of the Hollywood 10, a group of screenwriters and directors who went to prison in the early 1950s for defying the House Un-American Activities Committee. Contents http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MASH_(film)# hide *1 Plot *2 Cast *3 Production *4 Music *5 Reception **5.1 Accolades *6 See also *7 References *8 External links Plothttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=MASH_(film)&action=edit&section=1 edit In 1951, the 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital is assigned two replacements: Captains "Hawkeye" Pierce and "Duke" Forrest, who arrive in a stolen Jeep. They are insubordinate, womanizing, mischievous rule-breakers but they soon prove to be excellent combat surgeons. They immediately clash with their new tent mate Frank Burns, who is both a religious man and an inferior, stubborn, inept and incompetent surgeon who, when he causes mistakes, blames anyone that is aside him. Hawkeye and Duke pressure Lt. Colonel Henry Blake, the unit CO, to have Burns removed from "their" tent. They also ask him to apply for a specialist thoracic surgeon to be assigned to the 4077th. Their wish is granted whenCaptain "Trapper" John McIntyre arrives at the 4077th. Major Margaret Houlihan, the newly assigned chief nurse of the camp, arrives and has a tour of the camp. In the post-op ward, Trapper sees Burns unjustly blame Private Boone, an orderly, for a patient's death. Trapper then confronts Burns and punches him in front of Henry and Houlihan who happened to be walking by. Henry planned to make Trapper chief surgeon, but as a result of what happened, Henry advises him to postpone it for one week because if Trapper is named chief surgeon immediately after what Houlihan witnessed, she'll most likely file a complaint from Seoul to Washington, D.C. Later, Houlihan has a brief discussion about Army protocol with Hawkeye. Hawkeye mentions Burns negatively, which Houlihan strenuously disagrees and lies to him, claiming that Burns is a "good" technical and military surgeon and that he is not inferior. Houlihan also strenuously criticizes Hawkeye's nickname as inconsistent to nurses and enlisted men who call him by that name. Hawkeye develops an immediate dislike for her as a result, despite being attracted to her, calling her "what we call a regular army clown," with Houlihan referring to Hawkeye as a degenerate person. Houlihan and Burns then make plans to bring discipline to the M.A.S.H. unit, which they consider to be out of control. While Henry is away visiting General Hammond at the 325th Evac Hospital, Trapper, now named chief surgeon against Houlihan's wishes, leads the camp in a general abandonment of regulations, and wild partying ensues. Burns and Houlihan are appalled and write a report to the General. They also give in to their repressed passions and the two have sex in Houlihan's tent. Adding injury to insult, Hawkeye, Duke and Trapper quickly discover the tryst and have Cpl. "Radar" O'Reilly place a microphone under their cot and broadcast it over the public address system; everyone hears Houlihan telling Burns to "Kiss my hot lips!", earning her the insulting nickname "Hot Lips". Houlihan, initially unaware of the mic placed underneath the cot, hears her own voice echo over the PA system when the system starts to draw feedback, forcibly ending the sexual encounter. The next day, as a direct result of the sexual encounter, Houlihan and Burns are repeatedly subjected to sexual ridicule by nurses and enlisted men; Hawkeye, Trapper, and Duke make ribald comments about the encounter in which Trapper insults Houlihan for getting frustrated, and when Hawkeye quietly taunts Burns about the encounter, an angered Burns attacks him. As a result, Burns is sedated, restrained and shipped stateside for psychiatric evaluation, much to the camp's relief. Father Mulcahy, the camp's chaplain, tells Hawkeye that Walt Waldowski, the unit's dentist, has consulted him about a problem. Mulcahy feels unable to divulge any details because Walt confided in him during confession. Waldowski tells Hawkeye that he suffered a "lack of performance" with a visiting nurse and now believes he has latent homosexual tendencies. He wants to commit suicide, and asks advice on a reliable method. Hawkeye, Trapper and Duke suggest that he use the "black capsule", a fictitious fast-acting poison. At a farewell banquet that satirizes The Last Supper, Walt takes the capsule (actually a sleeping pill) and falls asleep in a coffin. Hawkeye persuades Lt. Maria Schneider to spend the night with Walt and cure him of his "problem." Duke announces that he is partial to blondes, prompting Hawkeye to declare that Duke is attracted to Hot Lips. Duke suggests she isn't a natural blonde; Hawkeye bets $20 that she is, but they have no way to find the truth. They develop an elaborate plan in which Hot Lips is isolated in the showers, and counterweights are used to raise the wall of the shower tent, exposing a nude Hot Lips to the entire camp. The plan works, money is exchanged, and Hot Lips is further ridiculed. Infuriated beyond reason over what happened, Houlihan labels the unit "an insane asylum!" and demands that Blake do something to discipline his surgeons, threatening to resign her commission if he doesn't turn Duke and Hawkeye over to the MP's. Blake, who is in bed with his mistress during this time, refuses to have Hawkeye and Duke arrested and callously dismisses Houlihan's complaint. She then leaves his tent, yelling "My commission!", while sobbing in embarrassment. Trapper is ordered to proceed to Kokura, Japan, to operate on the GI son of a U.S. Congressman. Seeing an opportunity to play golf, he takes Hawkeye to assist. The two invade the hospital and order the patient into surgery within the hour. An old friend of Hawkeye, "Me Lay" Marston, is their anaesthetist, and they quickly finish the surgery. Due to their previous antics, they are cornered by the MP's and escorted to the hospital's commander, Col. Wallace Merrill, who threatens to have them court-martialed because of this. They escape repercussions by reminding Merrill that they just saved the life of the Congressman's son. Later, while relaxing at Dr. Yamachi's New Era Hospital and Whorehouse (where Me Lay moonlights as a doctor), Hawkeye and Trapper are alerted to a Japanese-American baby with a serious medical problem. Taking advantage of their status as medical heroes, they go to the military hospital to operate, but are stopped by Merrill. They incapacitate him, anesthetize him, and then take nude blackmail photos of him with one of the prostitutes. On a visit to the 4077th, General Hammond suggests that the two units play a "friendly" football game, with some money thrown into a pot to make bets ($5,000 or $6,000). Hawkeye comes up with a plan to win all the money. First, they get Henry to apply for a specific neurosurgeon: Dr. Oliver Harmon Jones, a former professional football player for the San Francisco 49ers. Then, they bet half their money up front and keep the ringer (Jones) out of the first half of the game. During the game, Houlihan uncharacteristically participates as a cheerleader in an effort to fit in. Once the other team has racked up some easy points and become confident enough to offer good odds to bet the rest of the money, the 4077th brings in Jones for the second half. The 325th has their own ringers, however, and the 4077th fights back with illegal injuries and by drugging the 325th's running back. The game comes down to the last play, in which the quarterback (Trapper) returns the ball to the center, who then hides the ball under his jersey and runs into the end zone for the winning touchdown while everyone else chases a phantom ball. Not long after the football game, Hawkeye and Duke get their discharge orders and begin their journey home - in the same stolen Jeep they arrived in. Casthttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=MASH_(film)&action=edit&section=2 edit *Donald Sutherland as Capt. Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce *Elliott Gould as Capt. John Francis Xavier "Trapper John" McIntyre *Tom Skerritt as Capt. Augustus Bedford "Duke" Forrest *Sally Kellerman as Major Margaret "Hot Lips" Houlihan *Robert Duvall as Major Frank Burns *Roger Bowen as Lt. Col. Henry Braymore Blake *René Auberjonois as Father John Patrick "Dago Red" Mulcahy *David Arkin as SSgt. Wade Douglas Vollmer (Note: In the movie, Duke calls him "Lee".) (Note: The credits list him as a staff sergeant, but he wears the threechevrons of a master sergeant.) *Jo Ann Pflug as Lt. Maria "Dish" Schneider *John Schuck as Capt. Walter Koskiusko "The Painless Pole" Waldowski, DDS *Carl Gottlieb as Capt. John "Ugly John" Black *Danny Goldman as Capt. Murrhardt *Corey Fischer as Capt. Dennis Patrick Bandini *Indus Arthur as Lt. Leslie *Dawne Damon as Capt. Scorch *Tamara Horrocks as Capt. Bridget "Knocko" McCarthy *Gary Burghoff as Cpl. "Radar" O'Reilly *Ken Prymus as Pfc. Seidman *Fred Williamson as Capt. Oliver Harmon "Spearchucker" Jones *Michael Murphy as Capt. Ezekiel Bradbury "Me Lay" Marston IV *Timothy Brown as Cpl. Judson *Bud Cort as Pvt. Lorenzo Boone *G. Wood as Brig. Gen. Charlie Hammond *Kim Atwood as Ho-Jon *Dale Ishimoto as Korean doctor *Bobby Troup as SSgt. Gorman *Marvin Miller as PA Announcer Productionhttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=MASH_(film)&action=edit&section=3 edit The screenplay, by Ring Lardner, Jr., is radically different from the original novel;[citation needed] in the DVD audio commentary, Altman describes the novel as "pretty terrible" and somewhat "racist" (the only major black character has the nickname "Spearchucker"). He claims that the screenplay was used only as a springboard. However, the screenplay itself reveals that, while there is some improvisation in the film, and although Altman moved major sequences around, most sequences are in the screenplay. The main deletion is a subplot of Ho-Jon's return to the 4077th—as a casualty. When Radar steals blood from Henry, it is for Ho-Jon's operation under Trapper and Hawkeye's scalpels. When the surgeons are playing poker after the football game, they are resolutely ignoring a dead body being driven away—Ho-Jon's. The main deviation from the script is the trimming of much of the dialogue.[citation needed] The filming process was difficult, because of tensions between the director and his cast. During principal photography, Sutherland and Gould spent a third of their time trying to get Altman fired;[5] Altman, relatively new to the filmmaking establishment, at that time lacked the credentials to justify his unorthodox filmmaking process and had a history of turning down work rather than creating a poor-quality product.[6] Altman: "I had practice working for people who don't care about quality, and I learned how to sneak it in."[7] Altman later commented that if he had known about Gould and Sutherland, he would have resigned.[8] Gould later sent a letter of apology, and Altman used him in some of his later works, but he never worked with Sutherland again. There were only a few uses of loudspeaker announcements in the original cut. When Altman realized he needed more structure to his largely episodic film, editor Danford Greene suggested using more loudspeaker announcements to frame different episodes of the story. Greene took a second-unit crew and filmed additional shots of the speakers. On the same night that these scenes were shot, American astronauts landed on the moon.[9] During production, a caption that mentions the Korean setting was added to the beginning of the film,[10] at the request of 20th Century Fox studios.[11] The Korean War is explicitly referenced in announcements on the camp public address system[12] and during a radio announcement that plays while Hawkeye and Trapper are putting in Col. Merrill's office which also cites the film as taking place in 1951.[citation needed] In his director's commentary on the DVD release, Altman says that MASH was the first major studio film to use the word "fuck" in its dialogue. The word is spoken during the football game near the end of the film by "The Painless Pole" when he says to an opposing football player, "All right, Bud, your fucking head is coming right off!" The actor, John Schuck, has said in several interviews that Altman encouraged ad-libbing, and that particular statement made it into the film without a second thought. Interestingly, the offending word was not censored during a late-night broadcast of the film on ABC in 1985; subsequent broadcasts of the film on network television have the word removed altogether. (MASH had its television premiere as a CBS Friday Night Movie on September 13, 1974 @ 9:00 (EDT), three days after the start of[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_M*A*S*H_episodes_(Season_3) the third season of the M*A*S*H TV series]; it was repeated on CBS March 5, 1976.) Musichttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=MASH_(film)&action=edit&section=4 edit Johnny Mandel composed incidental music used throughout the film. Also heard on the soundtrack are Japanese vocal renditions of such songs as "Tokyo Shoe Shine Boy", "My Blue Heaven","Happy Days are Here Again", "Chattanooga Choo Choo", and "Hi-Lili, Hi-Lo"; impromptu performances of "Onward, Christian Soldiers", "When the Lights Go On Again", and "Hail to the Chief" by cast members; and the instrumental "Washington Post March" during the climactic football game. Columbia Recordsissued a soundtrack album for the film in 1970. MASH features the song "Suicide Is Painless", with music by Mandel and lyrics by Mike Altman, the director's then 14-year-old son. The version heard under the opening credits was sung by uncredited session vocalists John Bahler, Tom Bahler, Ron Hicklin, and Ian Freebairn-Smith (on the single release, the song is attributed to "The Mash"); the song is reprised later in the film by Pvt. Seidman (played by Ken Prymus). Altman has noted in interviews that his son made quite a bit more money off publishing royalties for the song than the $70,000 or so he was paid to direct the film. Receptionhttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=MASH_(film)&action=edit&section=5 edit Accoladeshttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=MASH_(film)&action=edit&section=6 edit MASH won the Palme d'Or at the 1970 Cannes Film Festival.[13] It was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Picture (lost to Patton), Best Director (lost to''Patton''), Best Supporting Actress for Sally Kellerman (lost to Helen Hayes for Airport), and Best Film Editing (lost to Patton), and won an Oscar for its screenplay. The film won the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture (Musical or Comedy) in 1971. The film was the 38th film to be released to the home video market when 20th Century Fox licensed fifty motion pictures from their library to Magnetic Video. In 1996, MASH was deemed "culturally significant" by the Library of Congress and was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry. The film is #17 on Bravo's "100 Funniest Movies" and #54 on "AFI" list of the top 100 American movies of all time. The film was re-released in North America in 1973 and earned an estimated $3.5 million in rentals. In order to attract audiences to the M*A*S*H television series which was struggling with audiences at the time the film was re-released at 112 minutes and received a PG rating. Several scenes were edited including segments of graphic operations, the f-word in the football game, and the scene where the curtain in the shower is pulled up on Hot Lips. "Suicide is Painless", the film's main theme song was removed from this version and new title music by Ahmad Jamal, was used instead according to film critic and historian Leonard Maltin in his movie and video guide. In the 1990s Fox Video released a VHS version of MASH under their "Selections" banner which ran 116 minutes and rated PG. However this is not the alternate PG version which was released in 1973. It runs the same amount of time that the original 1970 version did and none of the aforementioned scenes were removed from this VHS release and "Suicide is Painless" was still the main theme used. The actual 1973 PG edited version, has never been released on any video formats in the United States.[14] The critical reception for MASH was mostly positive. The film currently holds a 90% rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes based on 39 reviews. Category:1970 films